São Luís: walking tour

High on this promontory above the bay, you are looking at the seat of Maranhão's state government. It has an unusual beginning for a Brazilian capital. Most major cities in Brazil trace their European origins to Portugal, but São Luís was founded in September 1612 by the French.

A French nobleman, Daniel de La Touche, Seigneur de La Ravardière, led an expedition here to establish an equatorial colony called France Équinoxiale. He picked this cliff because it commanded the water, and he built a wooden fortification called Fort Saint-Louis, naming it after King Louis XIII. That fort is the reason the city bears a French king's name today.

The French colony did not last long. In 1615, Portuguese troops under Jerônimo de Albuquerque expelled the French forces. But the Portuguese immediately recognized that La Ravardière had chosen the perfect defensive spot. Instead of abandoning the site, they rebuilt the fortress and turned it into the residence of their colonial captains-general and governors.

Over the centuries, the rough military outpost grew into the neoclassical palace you see now. The bronze lions flanking the gates arrived in the early twentieth century, which is when locals started calling it Palácio dos Leões. Inside, the public wing holds European furniture and the Arthur Azevedo art gallery, but the real point of the place is still outside: it remains the active seat of government, perched on the exact rock the French chose four centuries ago.